Connecting people to the natural world.
Connecting people to each other.
The Arctos School of Herbal and Botanical Studies offers classes in plant medicine, botanical identification, mushroom foraging, community herbalism, and more in and around Portland, Oregon.
Our bioregional approach to herbalism grows from our commitment to social justice. We believe that empowered, caring communities are preventative medicine.
Arctos is Missy Rohs and a wide, wild community of students and alumni and guest instructors and friends in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.
The seeds of Arctos were planted in 2005 when Missy met Gradey Proctor while volunteering for Bark, an organization dedicated to protecting the Mt. Hood National Forest outside of Portland, Oregon. Gradey and Missy quickly realized that they shared a intensely nerdy love of plants, with complimentary perspectives: that of an ecologist/botanist and an herbalist/healer. It didn’t take long for them to realize that they both enjoy teaching, too: At that point, Gradey was already moonlighting as a botany instructor, while Missy had been leading radical first aid and civil rights trainings for years.
By the following year, Portland plant medicine classes were few and far between. Local herbal community leaders like Cascade Anderson Geller, Colette Gardiner, and Krista Olson were on hiatus, in retirement, or had moved out of town. Missy and Gradey decided to step up to fill that gap, offering plant walks and herbal hikes. The community response was resounding! By the time 2007 rolled around, the Arctos School was in full swing.
Since that first year of offering a community herbalism program (originally titled Herbalism & Ecosystems), the Arctos School has grown and developed. Missy’s offerings are more in-depth than ever before, and she brings decades of lived experience with medicinal plants to the classroom. Gradey has stepped back to focus on his green thumb; while he still participates in Arctos as a guest instructor, his main role is at Medicine Garden, an independent plant nursery. Through it all, the enthusiasm for plant healing has continued to grow in Oregon. Arctos is thrilled to be a part of this local and continent-wide renaissance of plant wisdom, nature connection, ethical foraging, community support, and do-it-ourselves culture.
Upcoming Workshops & Adventures
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Upcoming Workshops & Adventures ✿
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The plants that surround us are full of healing and nourishing properties, if we know where to look!
Join Missy for a seasonal stroll around the Hoyt Arboretum to explore the medicinal trees, weeds, and native plants we encounter. We’ll talk about which parts to use and which plants to avoid. You may even discover a new use for a plant you thought you knew well!
Class size is limited and pre-registration is required through Hoyt Arboretum. Registration closes about 24 hours before class, or when the class fills. Please direct registration questions to Hoyt Arboretum. Class will be held outdoors, rain or shine. Cost is $15 Hoyt Arboretum members/$20 non-members.
The Arctos Herbal Immersion Program
The Arctos Herbal Immersion Program is an invitation to those who want to steep themselves in the magic and medicine of plants and place.
Our 2027 Herbal Immersion offering will start with a six-week foundational section in late March and all of April. We will meet in person every Wednesday and Thursday from 10am-4pm.
In this short, intensive course, we’ll build a solid understanding for a well-rounded herbalist: connection with the land that we live on through the lenses of botany and ethical wildcrafting; understanding of medicinal plant actions through organoleptics, phytoconstituents, and herbal energetics; hands-on experience with making tinctures and medicinal-strength preparations; and in-depth exploration of materia medica for digestion and other body systems.
As an in-person learning experience, this class builds community, experiential knowledge of botanical medicine, and the satisfaction of making herbal remedies with fresh plants. Those who complete this six-week offering are welcome to sign up for other Herbal Immersion courses later in the year that build on this foundation.
Our 2026 program is underway! Stay tuned to discover what 2027 holds.
Meet Our Instructors
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Missy Rohs
FOUNDER AND LEAD INSTRUCTOR
Missy Rohs is a community herbalist, a queer nature geek, and a co-founder of The Arctos School. She grows, scavenges, and wildcrafts her own herbs with a focus on sustainable herbal remedies. Her ecological ethos drives a slightly over exuberant love of weeds.Missy’s path to herbal teaching began with grassroots labor activism and cross-border solidarity. As part of her activism, she joined the Black Cross Health Collective, a group that provided integrative first aid and aftercare for activists and garnered attention for their pepper spray trials. Missy used her experience in Black Cross as a springboard to dive head-first into the world of herbal learning. Encouraged by her herbal mentors, Krista Olson and Colette Gardiner, she packed her bags to study with Michael Moore at the Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. Upon her return to Portland, she began selling her herbal tinctures at a farmers’ market and leading plant medicine classes around town, teaching at conferences, volunteering with the Portland street medic community, and providing aftercare for protesters.
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Grady Proctor
GUEST INSTRUCTOR
An ecologist and botanist, Gradey Proctor has spent years studying the flora and fungi of Oregon's forests. He fell hopelessly in love with the Northwest upon his arrival in the '90s. Through classes, volunteer work, and employment, Gradey dove into the world of plants head-on. His longing to develop a sense of place has driven his passion for sustainably harvesting medicinal and edible plants -- and he loves supporting his community by teaching others to do the same.Gradey is a co-founder of the Arctos School. In 2023, he shifted his focus to give his other herbal endeavor, the Medicine Garden, his primary attention, while continuing to teach botany and ecology with Arctos. The Medicine Garden is an independent micro nursery in Portland, Oregon, specializing in healing herbs and hard-to-find plants. Learn about Medicine Garden plant sales, garden design consultations, and cultivation-focused classes here. When not hanging out with plants, Gradey spends his time with his kids.
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Abigail Singer
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Abigail Singer is a community herbalist, facilitator, and grief worker. She’s been active in movements for social and environmental justice since the late ‘90s, and believes everyone has a right to compassionate, respectful, and empowering health care. Abigail is inspired by vitalism and folk herbalism traditions in which health care is accessible, connected to place, and honors each person's unique experience and capacity for healing.Abigail has worked as a clinical herbalist and medicine maker, and is a co-founder of the People’s Health Clinic of Portland, a multi-modality free clinic serving Portland’s houseless community. Over the years, Abigail has come to see grief work as a necessary and powerful tool for healing and transformation on personal, community and societal levels. She is a graduate of the Blue Iris Mystery School and a facilitator of The Work That Reconnects, a framework for processing collective grief. She offers seasonal workshops, rituals and retreats through Tending the Web.
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Samantha Zipporah
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Samantha Zipporah is an author, educator, and healing artist with over twenty-five years of experience devoted to sexual and reproductive liberation. Sam believes body literacy & autonomy are our birthright. She delights in connecting people to the innate power and pleasure within their bodies across the womb continuum.
Sam’s unique praxis embraces modern and ancestral epistemologies, encourages creative and critical thinking, scientific and soulful inquiry. The books, courses, and client care she offers inform and inspire a variety of audiences, from professionals to preteens.
When she’s not cultivating consciousness or offering care for capital, you can often find her playing house, practicing rest as resistance, and singing songs about her feelings.
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Candace Larson
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Candace Larson is a field biologist with the Bird Alliance of Oregon, and is obsessed with the birds, plants, and fungi of the Pacific Northwest. Trained as a wilderness first responder, street medic, and urban disaster responder, Candace has built their skills and dedication to keeping people safe in the streets and in the back country through their work as a wilderness fire lookout, a street medic for political demonstrations, a hike leader with Bark, and a birding guide with Bird Alliance. -
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Kristin Currin & Andrew Merritt
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Kristin Currin and An"Drew" Merritt, authors of The Pacific Northwest Native Plant Primer, are the co-founders of Humble Roots Nursery, a native plant nursery in the Columbia River Gorge recognized for its efforts in sustainability and promoting native plants. While ethically propagating many important species, their passion for plants has involved them with innumerable native plant endeavors including pollinator and conservation plantings of all shapes and sizes, school gardens, backyard habitats, restoration projects, and rare plant conservation.
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Silke Akerson
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Silke Akerson, MPH, CPM, LDM is a mother, midwife, and herbalist with a passion for connecting people with plants and with their own self-knowledge for healing. She was raised here in Oregon in a back-to-the-land family where plant medicine, home birth, home health care, and home death are normal. True to her roots, she hopes to help people return to their bodies and to the land and plants around them, wherever they are. She works in maternal and infant public health in Portland, Oregon.
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Alex Rae
RECENT GUEST INSTRUCTOR
Alex Rae was born in the rural western NY, amongst national forests and wild waterways. She is a trained community/clinical herbalist and full spectrum doula who is passionate about accessible herbal care. Alex was raised around her Southern great grandmother who was a birthing assistant for her mother who worked as a midwife and herbalist with the Chestnut Ridge People. This could explain her passion to marry the plant world with reproductive justice.
Alex wears many hats. She is the founder of the Community Care Camper, a free mobile herb clinic that focuses on underserved populations in and around Ann Arbor Michigan. She is the co-owner Bloodroot Herb Shop, a coordinator for the Great Lakes Herb Faire, an herbal educator, and a mom, animist, pagan, and writer. She works on a sliding fee scale and weaves together harm reduction with a client- and heart-centered lens. She works mostly with AFAB people through postpartum, pregnancy loss & release, gut healing, and hormonal/mental health.
Your Questions, Answered
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Absolutely! Our students in the HIP run the gamut from utter novice ("This is new and exciting territory!") to experienced health care practitioner ("I know my diagnostics, but I don't have a solid botanical materia medica") to seasoned naturalist ("I can identify these plants, but can they be used for anything?") to lifelong gardener ("Please just give me a reason to love these dandelions!"). We will tell you what we mean when we talk about infusions, tinctures, monoecious plants, and mucilaginous extracts. We're available for questions, and you'll find that your fellow students are also an amazing resource, too.
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Good question. The answer? A lot! Our approach to learning herbalism is special: With our hands-on medicine making, you’ll gain confidence to create your own high-quality remedies while building your apothecary. With our abundant time in the field, you’ll grow a familiarity with and connection to the Pacific Northwest ecologies that we live in. With our engaging approach to botany and mycology, you’ll come out of the program understanding how to identify plants and mushrooms using keys and how to recognize plant families. With our herbal-actions-based approach to learning about medicinal plants, you’ll gain a thorough understanding of the principles behind using particular herbs, and you’ll get the hang of how to formulate successfully. Our herbal games, plant walks, and interactive style all help with deepening and retaining the knowledge that you have. Our focus on sustainability and stewardship will help inform your own ethical lens.
Learn from at least a few different plant medicine lovers, and we guarantee that you'll be a better herbalist for it. We welcome intermediate students in our introductory classes, our Herbal Immersion Program, and our intermediate offerings.
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We’re not offering that this year, but we’re excited to do so in the future. If you have a group of intermediate herbalists who are ready to take this class, please reach out and we can craft a course and schedule that works for your cohort.
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There are a lot of herbalism schools in North America that boast about offering herbal certification. Herbalism is unlicensed and unregulated in the United States; there’s no legal certification or licensure for herbalists. We like to be transparent with our students about that! However, we offer a certificate of completion for our Herbal Immersion Program as a token of the time and effort that you’ve put into your studies. We’re proud of everyone who completes our program!
Alumni who want to use their herbal and botanical skills to get a job or to study with other schools are always welcome to ask us for a letter of reference. Our description of what our 250-hour course covers, and what your strengths were as a student, will inform people much better than a certificate could.
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Missy and Gradey started teaching together as Arctos in 2006, offering workshops and medicinal plant hikes. In 2007, the Herbalism & Ecosystems program, a joint venture between both Gradey and Missy, began. A decade later, Missy expanded that course to become the Herbal Immersion Program. Gradey remains teaching as a cherished part of the Herbal Immersion Program, but since 2023 has turned his primary focus to his Medicine Garden nursery.
Before we started the Arctos School, both of us had a fair amount of teaching, facilitating, and training under our belts.
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Arctos programs are about conveying pragmatic skills with the goals of connecting people with the land, connecting people with their community/ies, and improving community resilience. These pragmatic skills can be put to use in everyday life: ethical wildcrafting/weedcrafting for food and medicine; home medicine-making; cultivating plants and using weeds; practicing medic skills and using herbs for first aid. Our classes stress a sustainability-centered, reciprocity-based, thoughtful approach to harvesting wild plants and an enthusiastic endorsement of using common weeds as plant allies. We wear our beliefs on our sleeves, and we want to change the world. But we aren't the gatekeepers of transformational knowledge; we want to facilitate a collaborative process to create learning.
We encourage studying with different plant medicine teachers; an herbal education is never complete, and a broad base of knowledge benefits us all. Even learning the 'basics' of nettles or calendula with different instructors will, for attentive students, yield further knowledge and even greater questions. You’re welcome to study with us if you’ve already learned from other herbalists, and we support our alumni in furthering their learning at other herbalism schools — or in massage programs, aromatherapy apprenticeships, naturopathic colleges, and other connected-but-different modalities!
Collaborative, honest, and straightforward. We're here to guide the process, bring ideas to the table, and keep things moving.
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The interview is an informal one-on-one meeting. Don't worry about dressing up, preparing a résumé, or rehearsing a speech! I just want to outline the expectations of students, answer your questions about the program, and make sure that we're a good fit. Spoiler alert: Participation, attendance, and commitment are important.
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Arctos always encourages students to learn from each other. If you miss a class, please catch up on the material covered with another student in the program before the next time the class meets. That could look like: your classmate leading a plant walk for you; reading your classmate's notes; coming up with a Q&A session with your classmate; making medicine together; and more. This facilitates community-building between herbalism students and also enhances learning opportunities for those willing to pass along knowledge to fellow plant lovers. Missy will gladly answer any questions remaining after that connection, and is available for private tutorial sessions if needed (rates discounted for current students).
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We are always open to proposals for partial trade. If you or someone on your behalf has a professional skill or resources that you’d like to trade, please approach us with a specific proposal, and we will let you know if that is a service or item that we could use at this time. You’re welcome to pitch anything you have to offer: carpentry, bodywork, class rental space, housecleaning, CSA shares, graphic design, videography, raw honey, landscaping, vacation rental stays, etc. When we accept trade, it’s typically for 20-50% of the cost of a program, or up to full cost of a one-day offering, with the remainder paid with money.
As a tiny school, Arctos do not typically have work-study positions. If we are looking for a work-study student, it will be listed in the individual program description or posted on Arctos’s facebook page and instagram account.
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Arctos is a place-based school, centered in and around Portland, Oregon. Almost all of our teaching is in-person, both outdoors and indoors, because we personally cherish hands-on learning and face-to-face interaction. Harm-reduction protocols, such as outdoor classes, excellent indoor air filtration, and improved air circulation are employed for all classes. Masks are always welcome in Arctos classes, and up-to-date vaccinations for flu, covid, and other contagious illnesses are highly encouraged.
We recognize that online learning is a valuable tool as well. The pandemic inspired us to offer online classes, and occasionally we have offerings via zoom. When we meet online, our goals remain the same: To engage students in interactive, participatory, and experiential learning.
Our Customized Offerings
Private Workshops & Walks
Missy offers customized classes for individuals and groups, with topics ranging from backyard medicinal plant tours to making home remedies with healing herbs.
Workshops are tailored to your interests and experience, whether you're just beginning or looking to deepen your knowledge.
Popular offerings include identifying medicinal weeds and garden plants in your neighborhood, making fire cider with friends, creating a personalized herbal first aid kit, and learning the art of tincture-making. Each class offers practical skills you can take home and incorporate into everyday life.
Private workshops are a great way to learn alongside friends, family, or a group with shared interests. Please inquire about pricing, scheduling, and group size to create a customized experience that suits your needs.
Group Field Trips
Explore the natural world through botanical education hikes, foraging walks, and mushroom hunts. These guided experiences are tailored to your interests and experience level, from beginner-friendly plant identification to more advanced botanical exploration.
Field trips typically last four or six hours, plus transit time. Groups can request a specific location or theme, such as identifying first aid herbs on a family farm, or let the instructors plan an outing focused on seasonal plants and edible mushrooms.
Seasonal offerings, especially autumn mushroom foraging, can book up quickly, so advance planning is encouraged. Please inquire about pricing, scheduling, and group size to plan a field trip that fits your interests.
Health Consultations
Missy offers health consultations by phone or in person, drawing on her clinical herbal training to explore patterns of imbalance and potential root causes of health concerns. Her approach is practical and personalized, with an emphasis on simple, accessible, and aligned recommendations for each person's unique needs.
Consultations may address sleep, urinary health, and premenstrual symptoms, as well as broader goals such as immune support and emotional well-being. Missy will ask about your relevant health history and share educational guidance on herbs, nutrition, and lifestyle practices.
Consultations are offered on a sliding scale of $50–$150, with other options available if cost is a barrier. Herbs are not included, but current clients receive 30% off tinctures. Consultations are educational in nature; Missy does not diagnose, prescribe, or treat illness.
Get In Touch
We are located in and around Portland, Oregon, on unceded Indigenous land. "The Portland Metro area rests on traditional village sites of the Multnomah, Wasco, Cowlitz, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Bands of Chinook, Tualatin, Kalapuya, Molalla, and many other tribes who made their homes along the Columbia River creating communities and summer encampments to harvest and use the plentiful natural resources of the area" (Portland Indian Leaders Roundtable, 2018).
For more information & to sign up for our offerings — please contact us below:
